Numerology in the York ‘Adam and Eve in Eden’

The occult significance of numbers, now called numerology, was central to the medieval concept of the universe. The York cycle Creation plays all have stanza lengths with occult significance relative to their meaning. Knowledge about the particular occult significance of each of these numbers was widespread. The inherence of the occult in the stanza lengths of these plays may well have been perceptible to their medieval audience. If so, the audience’s pleasure and sense of the religious meaning of these plays were both enhanced